This was a self-funded startup that a college friend and I worked on for a year and a half. We launched 3 websites in that time. It ended up going nowhere, but there seems to be a lot of folks asking for stories of startups that just fade away, so I made this blog public anyway.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Aftermath

It's now been 5 months since Diffle folded, so I figured I'd write one last post to wrap up this blog. There seems to be a lot of curiosity about what happens to startup founders after their startups die, so perhaps this'll prove informative to people.

Job Hunt

I start work as a UI Software Engineer on Google's Search UI team next month. The resume effect mentioned in Paul Graham's essays seems to be true: my recruiter said that one factor in their acceptance was the experience of having run my own business, even if it did fail. (The others were heavy JavaScript experience and strong knowledge of theoretical CS fundamentals, which apparently is not a combination they get very often.) They thought it would make me a good candidate for leadership roles in the future, which I hope is true, though I'm sure there's plenty to learn on the engineering side before then.

It's not a panacea, though. I also applied to Twitter and didn't even get an interview. Skill fit still matters - being a startup founder is not automatically going to get you a job, though it usually helps. As does all the other common-sense jobhunting advice, like going through a referral, being nice to HR, dressing well for the interview, following up, and knowing your stuff.

It also matters what you did in the startup - at my last employer, I interviewed one candidate who had started his own company but outsourced all development to programmers in Russia. When I asked him what he'd learned from the startup, he said, "That you can't depend on outside programmers. Other people are unreliable." He didn't get the job.

Immediate Aftermath

I didn't realize it at the time, but I was flying when I closed down Diffle - running on pure adrenalin. Part of this was from working with the YC startup, and part was just that entrepreneurship tends to put you into this highly-focused, tunnel-vision state that feels just slighly unreal.

That all crashed down about a month later, which happened to be about a week and a half after I started the job hunt. I ended up getting rejected by FriendFeed, and then told the other companies that I wasn't quite ready to go back into the employee world and needed a few months to figure out what I really wanted to do next.

For anyone faced with winding down a company, I'd highly recommend taking a while off before making any big decisions, and not just the two and a half weeks that I'd initially tried. You're not thinking straight when your startup dies - your perspective may be a bit different in a few months, as might your preferences for what you want to do next.

The corollary to that is to wind up your startup before you're totally out of money, so that you have options for what to do next and don't have to bargain from a place of total weakness.

Anyway, I ended up developing a programming language for those couple of months. I'd actually started this about 3 weeks before Diffle, and then put it on hold for the startup. Whenever people asked me what I'd do if Diffle was a huge success and got bought for enough money to retire on, I said, "Invent a programming language or something." I figured that I still had a good amount of savings and didn't know what I wanted to do, so I might as well get that childhood dream out of the way and see how far I could take it.

As it turned out, I decided that this was better off as a part-time hobby project (remember "If your idea starts with 'we're building a platform to...', find a new idea"? It applies to programming languages as well.) I'm hoping to continue it, as a hobby project, though I don't know how much spare time I'll have at Google.

I also spent a lot of this time stripping off pieces of GameClay, cleaning them up, writing docs, and open-sourcing them. This often took longer than writing the initial code.

I started pursuing other opportunities around October. There was a YC startup that was interested in me as a first employee. A couple friends offered to refer me to big companies (Apple and eBay over the summer, and then Google and IBM in October). I thought I'd try a cold application to Twitter and Facebook (Twitter ignored me, and I nixed Facebook after realizing I'd probably have to code in PHP). And I had a whole bunch of other startup ideas.

I didn't decide what general direction I wanted to go until very late in the process - as in, last week or so. For a while, I thought about just telling the places I was applying to that I was off the market and doing another startup. Even as recently as this afternoon, literally minutes before formally accepting Google's offer, my mom was telling me about how she'd shared one of my startup ideas with a bunch of prospective customers (teachers - it was education-related) and half thought it was a terrible idea and half absolutely loved it. That's often the mark of a good idea, so I wondered if I was making the right choice.

But if I were to do another startup, I'd be stuck with it for the next 4-10 years, it'd have to be profitable within about 2 to avoid running out of money, and this is all in a very uncertain economic climate. And I have no cofounder, so I'd be doing everything myself until I could afford employees, and then I'd have to build a company culture. There's no fun in that - I might be able to pull it off and get rich, but it'd eat up all of my twenties, probably all my friends, and possibly all my sanity. Not worth it.

Some additional lessons

I keep thinking of other things I wish I'd said in the postmortem but didn't think of. Here're a couple that stick out, though I'm only going to devote a paragraph or so to each.

The big one: startups are out there, not in your head. You get ideas by engaging with the world around you. That can mean potential customers, or experts in the field, or lead users, or friends, or even potential investors. It's really tempting to hole yourself up in your room and code, but unless your idea is spot on (and almost no ideas are), this is a recipe for failure.

Pick a direction and go deep. I tried a couple other ideas after officially folding up, yet never really got into them. If you're like most entrepreneurs, it's easy to get overwhelmed by the number of possible things you could be doing. Ignore most of them, and concentrate only on what you can do better than anyone else.

It's also really important to be frugal. This is more apparent after failure than before: frugality gives you options, and you need them. If you're better positioned than we were, you might even be able to turn failure into victory given enough chances, and cash will give you chances.

Conclusion

I still hope that there's another startup in my future. It looks like it'll now be several years off in my future, though. In the meantime, I'm stoked for Google. I thought the people I met there seemed really cool, as does a lot of the stuff that comes out of there. Maybe I can even give the "intrapreneurship" thing a try.

Saw your post on HN - welcome to the Google search team ;-) Don't worry, there's a lot of opportunities to work on cool small projects here. Look me up when you get here if you want some more specific tips....

Hi Jonathan,Ran across your blog when I was googling "startup incorporation". As an entrepreneur who's tried before and is now doing it again I found your blog fascinating. It took me about 4 years to "recover" from my previous startup effort so definitely take the time to get re-energized and I'm sure you'll one day get the bug yet again :)Best, John

Hi Alex. I've owned two non-tech businesses (one I started, the other I bought from the founder), both pretty traditional. Sounds like you've learned some valuable lessons during your own experience. I really appreciate this clear-headed brief post-mortem on the experience. You've given others some valuable advice here. Good luck with the new job. I have no doubt you'll be pursuing another startup someday in the future (maybe eating up your 30s or 40s).

This was an excellent round up and strikingly similar to what I experienced post leaving the startup I co-founded.

I came back to my hometown. Worked for a while in a small web development outfit. Somehow it didn't feel right. So I left that and tried my hand pro-blogging, realized it takes a long time and needs resources. That gave me a startup idea but the fact that I'm alone (there isn't another co-founder) affects me.

I keep pushing myself all the time, but after a while it seems like I'm turning into a mindless zombie. It takes a toll. I guess I need a couple of good years behind my back, now more than ever. Might have to walk the road you did, although the though of working for Google/Apple/Facebook seems a bit far-fetched ATM.

Would be nice to know how your experience @ Google has turned out so far.

Just finished reading through the whole diary (referred by HN). Brutal story. You have my sympathies.

I realize that this wasn't initially intended for public consumption, but one thing I noticed is that you wrote a lot about implementation details and very little about the cool features you were trying to deliver, much less how you planned to make money from them. In retrospect, would you say that this was an omen in itself? Or did you simply make a conscious decision to keep the blog focused on technical issues?

Tn Requinhim advice during this particular scene Nike Air Riftand advises him to attend school. jeans dieselAs the episode plays out Bubbles takes Sherrod to school and assists him to process himself into the school they visit. Chaussures pumaOr another scene in whichTn Requina young kid is found to be driving an Escalade, Air Maxwhere most of the other kids admire him, Wholesale Polo Shirtsas he acts as someone not of his age buttn requincheap nike shox simply because it is accepted into this drug world but wouldn’t necessarily work in a very clean cut type of town.

Good writing, and I very much agree with your thoughts and insights. Hope that more could write such a good word, I said, to continue coming to visit, thank you for sharing.i love Straightening Machine

Oh, so unexpected, so surprise! Very touching, so well written and I have some perception, learning very much. Thank you for sharing. Very happy to see these and believe that your point of view. This same time,i love wafer butterfly valve

Very happy to see your article, I very much to like and agree with your point of view. Thank you for sharing. At the same time,i love pig fence very much .Welcome to look at my website and blog articles.Hope we can become good friends, and exchange and to help each other! Thanks!! Steel Valve

Good writing, and I very much agree with your thoughts and insights. Hope that more could write such a good word, I said, to continue coming to visit, thank you for sharing.i love Cold Rolling Mill Cold Rolling Machine

Wonderful information, I will save this and show it to my friend, she is huge fan of this. It's been a pleasure to read your post.Hannah from SheepArcadeIf you like to play games, visit sheep arcade and play poker games and much more free games.

Included in the Beats' impressive packaging aMonster Miles Davis Tributere two Duracell AAA batteries. I hadn't installed them. I removed the headMonster Turbinephones and searched all over for a battery compartment. Again: Nothing. I was perplexed. And charley-horsed.

The water three men were Coach Shoulder Bags exposeto while working atcoach outlet online the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear Coach Poppy Bags power plant had 10,000 times the amountcoach outlet store of radiation typical for that locale, an official with the Japan nuclear and industrial safety agency said Friday.

The high Gucci Tote Bagslevels indicate the nuclear fuel inside the No. 3 Gucci Shoesreactor "is damaged," the official said.

The incidentCoach Tote Bags raised questions about radiationCoach Hobo Bags control measures at the plant gucci sale as 536 people -- including government authoritiesgucci outlet and firefightersasics shoes continued onitsuka tiger mexico 66working there Friday, according to an official with the plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co.

Workers are undertaking asics outlet a broad array of measures to prevent the further release of radioactive substances into the air and beyond.

Some 17 people already have beengucci handbags sale exposed to 100 or more millisieverts of radiation since the plant's crisis began two weeks ago after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami struck.

Thank you for this article. This is my first time I visit here.That’s all I can say. You most definitely have made this blog into something special. At the same time,Welcome to look at my website ghd uk and hope we can become good friends, and exchange and to help each other! Thanks.Best Chi Hair StraightenerYou can also visit ghd uk and chi us

The christian louboutin heels is designed for the ladies. Since the pumps was born, the ladies life become colorful. The christian louboutin evening pumps are the god's masterwork. Who invited thechristian louboutin pumps? Seldom people knew, but I think every lady would be grateful for him. Among the countless pumps, the christian louboutin peep toe is the most outstanding ones. The elegant pattern, the delicate style all mold the ladies perfect leg profile. Flowers in the spring of 2011 creeping, up from hair to clothes continue to footwear, have had a brilliant up. In such a glamor, spring and summer flowers now here. Romance is a woman's mood, exquisite flowers just right of expression in our gestures, the woman, how can we not love the romantic temperament so that they distributed the flowers do? 2011 flowers bloom will enjoy different poses! The Christian Louboutin 2011 Sandals also can adds the hright of the ladies, it bring surprise to the short lady. Especially the red sole of the louboutin heels, magic and sexy, many ladies are crazy. The red sole, the first feature of the Christian Louboutin stroe.

The Louboutin 2011 is planned using the ladies. offered the fact that pumps was born, the ladies lifestyle turn into colorful. The christian Louboutin 2011 Pumpswill be the god's masterwork. Who invited the Christian Louboutin Wedges ? Seldom people knew, but I think each and every and every lady will be grateful for him. between the countless pumps,the Christian Louboutin Shoescould be probably the most exceptional ones. The stylish pattern, the delicate design all mold the ladies perfect leg profile. Flowers inside the spring of 2011 creeping, up from frizzy hair to outfits hold on to footwear, have experienced a brilliant up. on this type of the glamor, spring and summer time flowers now here. Romance is really a woman's mood, exquisite flowers just appropriate of expression within our gestures, the woman, how can we not adore the romantic temperament to make certain which they distributed the flowers do? 2011 flowers bloom will get satisfaction from numerous poses! The Christian Louboutin New Sandalsalso can adds the hright in the ladies, it hold shock toward short lady. especially the red-colored lone in the louboutin heels, beauty and sexy, different ladies are crazy. The red-colored sole, andChristian Louboutin Mensis a very distinctive design, its design reflects its style. You put on it, that means you have its style.the earliest attribute in the Louboutin 2011 stroe.http://www.sale-louboutin-shoes.us

Leaders are both born and made. See if you have what it takes to be a manager, and what you can do to improve the skills you already have. You can have courses online if you need some guidance and assistance.

No matter how they are Ugg Boots UK worn they are not only beautiful stylish boots, but amazingly comfortable as well!Now, let us take a look at the Ugg Cardy boots. Ugg Cardy boots Ugg Online Store have a luxuriously soft Ugg Clearance Sale sheepskin inner sock that serves to keep feet warm and cozy, while keeping moisture off the feet. Moncler Online Because of this feature, Uggs boots uk the boots can be worn comfortably even during the warmest months of the year without feet becoming hot. The 2008 colors for Ugg Cardy boots include a few that are popular as well as a few that are producing only mediocre sales. As mentioned above the most popular color Ugg Boots Outlet is Grey-why? Well, they are a lovely soft shade that will go with practically anything in a woman's wardrobe and are a perfect color for the cold months in the year. ugg outlet They're in such high demand this winter that finding them is a bit like looking for a needle Ugg Boots Clearance Sale in a haystack! Facing for the cold weather, uggs clearance are you looking for a pair of warm shoes? I highly recommend Ugg footwear on the online shop. Wait for what? Grab the comfortable and warm Uggs Uggs Clearance for your best friends, uggs clearance your lover, your kids, your old man, and anyone else.